Make Room
by violetteacup
Summary: But that's why she was here, she reasoned. He was exhausted the same way she was, and had seen what she had seen, and there are some things that only survivors can understand between each other.


Katniss tried very hard to remember a time where she felt more embarrassed than she currently was, desperately seeking some emotional perspective standing outside of a bedroom that was not hers, in a district that was not hers, and in a war that was not hers to mascot.

Haymitch drunkenly stumbling in on her changing on the train during her first trip to the Capitol: more irritating than embarrassing.

Johanna brazenly stripping in the elevator the first time they met? White-hot pang through her chest. She was trying so hard not to think –

Watching Peeta get slapped, hard, for a loaf of bread – for _her_ – it was shameful, and it _hurt_, was not embarrassing, was a thousand times worse. Finnick pushing hard on Peeta's chest after he hit the electrified edge of the arena, and her limbs were lead even though she knew what to do but she couldn't _move,_ but he offered her that oyster's pearl on the beach afterwards anyway, but then he was gone, even though that drunkard had _promised_ –

A bitter frown worked its way on her face, and Katniss felt a sudden furious determination.

They had fought to keep her alive in the arena; she would see they dealt with the consequences.

Three sharp raps on the door. "Finnick."

He was frowning as he opened the door, and she marched in without further preamble.

"Yes, I'm well, thank you, and yourself, Sunshine?" He sounded incredibly tired, words slurring slightly as he rolled his shoulders, shutting the door behind her. She tried to feel around for some guilt, coming up empty.

But that's why she was here, she reasoned. He was _exhausted_ the same way she was, and had seen what she had seen, and there are some things that only survivors can understand between each other.

"I needed a break." She sat down on the corner of the bed gracelessly, looking determinedly away from his openly bemused face. "Everyone is trying to help." She offered lamely in explanation.

Finnick sat down warily beside her. Katniss expected a response, but when the silence stretched out for over ten seconds she remembered Haymitch's words about never getting off the "victory" train. She couldn't expect some sage words from Finnick as a former victor; he was still only trying to survive years after the fact, unable to give what he didn't have himself. She was probably making this harder on both of them by being here.

Hysteria began bubbling in her throat. She was sure she wouldn't last as long as Finnick after the Games. Especially without Peeta. Especially now that the dreams had gotten so much _worse_.

"They tell me they understand but they don't. They don't…they don't see them. They don't have the dreams. Prim, and my mom, even Gale, they've never really had to fight. Not to stay alive, they think there's something romantic about dying for something you believe in, some kind of 'sacrifice.'" She was mortified to find her lower lip trembling mutinously at the end of her last word, faked a cough into her hand to cover the sight of it.

Finnick sighed beside her, leaning back on one of his forearms and scratching his cheek absently.

"Isn't there? In sacrifice, I mean?"

"I don't think there's anything romantic about dying, period."

"But if you had to choose."

Her eyes narrowed to slits burning holes in the tiled floor beneath them. Of course she would die to protect Prim, her mother, Peeta –

"I'm different. We're different."

"That so?"

"If Annie had never been in the Games, would you ask her? To die for you, or kill someone else's Annie for you? For some _idea_ that will probably never work?" She felt herself go over a line somewhere, and beside her Finnick stiffened angrily, sitting up and turning to face her fully. "The Games made us okay with killing, and we're asking everyone else to join in. Finnick, you _see_ what it does to people!"

"Quit being selfish. This isn't about putting your family into the arena –"

"Is it not? Because I _fail to see the difference_."

"That's the point. You're so worried about your own nucleus that _you_ aren't willing to accept that us _not_ fighting the Capitol is killing _hundreds of thousands_ of people and they were Prims and Peetas too. This isn't about you not believing in the revolution, this is about you wanting to throw a country away to try and protect, what, three people?" Finnick took a deep breath at the end, reaching out and grabbing Katniss' chin, turning it towards him, speaking the next words deliberately. "I trust Annie to do what's right. I'd never ask her for more or less than that."

"And if they live?" Katniss asked hoarsely, squeezing her eyes shut. "If they live, and can't get over the nightmares? If the whistle of the tea kettle sends them rolling under the table for cover and the smell of blood from a scraped knee makes them throw up?"

Slowly, she felt Finnick drop her chin before moving an arm around her shoulders and pulling her closer, lightly enough that she could move away if and when she wanted, not wanting to push her too far. She didn't miss his lack of an answer, but had a sudden, stomach-clenching vision of Wiress' neck agape and there is blood _everywhere, _and trying to hunt with Gale but seeing tributes littered with her arrows where she thought she had shot for a turkey, the sobs he had been unable to quiet afterwards, and gripped his shirt.

Less than a minute, and Katniss was lamenting the too broad shoulders, the stubbly neck, and the all-around non-Peeta-ness of him. Finnick is a survivor and understands, but Peeta is Peeta and he _helps_. He rubbed small circles in her back when the nightmares left her hiccupping in tears and didn't expect her to happily make herself mascot and martyr for a cause she was sure would kill her family, and most importantly would have wanted, or at least not minded, her traipsing into his room in the earliest hours of the morning to complain she had too many loved ones to care for.

Katniss was beginning to regret coming, and a peek up at Finnick said in no uncertain terms he wished she was someone else too. She started to pull away, moving his arm off of her shoulders, when his muscles tensed suddenly, and words tumbled out like he hadn't been expecting them himself.

"We're only trying to pick up what's left, yeah? Even if we're doing it in different ways."

Katniss looked at him closely for a moment, and with utter clarity decided she had made it worse for herself and for Finnick (Finnick who saved her, and saved Peeta, and has only ever dedicated himself to this since he survived his Game, and who has put all of that on her obviously unwilling back, as if she were the only possibility that he trusted with his years of work, and with, by proxy, Annie) by coming, that this has solved nothing

"I think, sometimes, they were lucky to not come back."

The words burned and felt wrong clawing up her throat as she said them, but Finnick only met them with his own wry smile and said, simply, "Welcome to the Winner's Circle."

She pushed herself off his bed then, and slipped out as quietly as possible. When she made it back to her own bed, she fluffed her pillow up as much as possible and curled herself around it, hugging it close to her chest. When the next dreams came, she swore, she wouldn't wake Finnick again.

**A/N: Don't own, don't sue.**

**This didn't go as I originally planned but c'est la vie.**

**I swear I am not putting off Better than Nothing, but I was so motivated after seeing the movie I had to do ****something****.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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